World Snooker Championship - Two former World Champions out and Hendry struggling (April 24, 2007)
| 1
|
| |||
|
0 votes 
0 commentsDay 4 featured three potential champions in Mark Williams, Stephen Hendry and Ken Doherty.
Matches
Doherty was first up completing his match from 6-3 down against Mark Allen, a Crucible rookie. Doherty played much better than he had the day before, and made a 135 break to level the scores at 7-7. Just when Doherty was easing his way into the game, Allen played his best snooker, and won three frames in a row to triumph 10-7. He will play Matthew Stevens in the Second Round.
Mark Williams played Joe Swail. Williams won his last World Title in 2003, and had not won a match since December coming in to the tournament. He raced into a 4-0 lead, before Swail won four in a row to level at 4-4. But Williams won the last to go 5-4 up going into the evening session. The evening session was topsy turvy and the match went all the way to a deciding frame. Two 50+ breaks from Swail gave him a 10-9 win to further continue Williams' poor form.
Stephen Maguire resumed his match 7-2 up against Joe Perry, and he did enough to coast into the Second Round, winning by 10 frames to 3.
The other game of the day saw Stephen Lee play the much improved Mark Selby - who had beaten John Higgins at this stage last year. Lee got off to the better start though. He won the first 5 frames to go 5-0 up, but Selby pulled it back to 5-4 overnight by winning the last four.
Moment of the Day
Before the evening session, and the end of the match between Mark Williams and Joe Swail, the game was halted for a moment due to an oversight. The sponsors, 888.com have a light shining on the table in the form of an advertising logo, but whoever's job it was to turn the light off at the start of play forgot to turn the light off. Play was unable to start for over a minute until the light was switched off.
What to look forward to
John Higgins enters the competition with his first round match starting against temporamental Englishman Michael Holt. Australian Neil Robertson starts his eagerly awaited entrance into the competition. He has to play Welsh rising star Ryan Day, but Robertson has been the only winner of two ranking events this season. It looks set to be a good match. Allister Carter and Andy Hicks also get under way.
Date
April 24, 2007
